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The only way it could really work is if the UCI said "declare all your past indiscretions, but anything left under the carpet will result in a lifetime ban should it surface from this date..." Then riders are actually incentivised to clear the air. Probably wouldn't work though.
Such an amnesty is currently permitted under the WADA code, so the UCI cannot unilaterally allow one, as the penalty would likely be the expulsion of cycling from the Olympics.
As I understand it, this topic is currently being discussed between the UCI and WADA. I still think truth and reconciliation is an unworkable idea.
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I still think truth and reconciliation is an unworkable idea.
If that's true, I think I can be reconciled to it.
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what is a workable alternative?
The current system, of a permanent arms race between cops and robbers, but with better funded cops, no robbers at the top of the police force, and a populace which trusts that grassing up crooks will result in some action by the cops rather than just getting beaten up by the robbers. You can't eliminate cheating by changing the rules, but you can reduce it by changing the culture.
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I can't see it happening anytime soon
It's already happening; the biggest crooks in the police force have been sacked, riders are increasingly voicing their concerns about other riders rather than keeping quiet.
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You can help change a culture using the rules though...
Your evidence for this is what? Look at crime and punishment; the deterrent effect of punishment is negligible, because crooks are usually stupid enough to think they won't get caught. Demonstrating that they will get caught by good enforcement has a greater deterrent effect than any variation in the level of punishment they will receive when they do get caught.
There are economics in play when criminality is highly profitable, which is why LA was acting rationally even though he was also acting immorally; there was (and probably still is) a perverse incentive in the rules which made it economically rational to cheat even if he thought there was a high probability of eventual capture, because there was (and still is) no effective procedure for recovering the proceeds of crime. In financial crime circles, there is a move towards deferred bonuses, and there might be an argument for some comparable measures in cycling, but simply postponing payments would disproportionately punish the innocent, and at the lower levels even of the ProTour peloton riders simply wouldn't turn up if any significant portion of their salary was subject to claw-back. At the top level, where the really big money comes not from team salary or prize money but from endorsement and image rights, the arrangements are a matter of private contract between the rider and the sponsor, which are not really any of the UCI's business. Of course, the right wing nutter in my house thinks salary and prizes are none of the UCI's business either, leaving all contractual terms relating to compensating the money providers for reputational damage resulting from riders' rule breaking to the market.
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You can adjust behaviour with rules.
I like your crime & punishment analogy and totally agree harsh sentences work only so far.
Luckily pro cycling is different. It's very specific and that makes it easier to write effective rules!
The overwhelming majority of athletes come into the sport with a love of it and with good intentions. Riders will dope if the testing is insufficient and the fall-out from a positive has limited effect. It's as simple as that. So what here can change?
Testing for known drugs is about to turn a corner with the ability to detect past doping in dna. The idea that retrospective testing for currently undetectable PEDs should make most riders realise they're is always a chance you'll be found-out, at any point. So maybe we are close to a system where real punishment* can be handed out if/when doping control's science finally catches up with dopers (and their doctors).
*by real I mean career bans from the sport they love and which they rely on for income.
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Interesting couple of views from Cav in there.
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Interesting couple of views from Cav in there.
"we’re light years ahead of other sports in the war on drugs."
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I've read a lot of anger from the MTB community towards Ryder and his fellows, a lot of people that raced against him in the early noughties and saw the transformation from mid-pack fodder to being unbeatable. It seems very unlikely that the tired 'I only did it for a season then saw the error of my ways and stopped' excuse is at all true, just neatly puts him outside of the SoL so he escapes censure.
And it's the last bit that sticks in the craw. Ryder has benefitted from drugs, won races because of them, secured contracts and fat wage cheques because of them. His career is one built on lies and at the expense of more honest racers. So now's he's at Garmin and winning races and Vaughters is running around like aheadless chicken on Twitter attempting to obfuscate and deflect. The big thing seems to be 'ok Ryder doped but what about Scarponi?'. When I suggested on Twitter that his doping in 2003 means there is doubt cast on his Giro win JV replied 'yes, to the uneducated'. What do you take us for Vaughters? How many times have we heard a rider say they tried it once but then stopped. It's the Clinton excuse: 'yes I smoked it but I never inhaled'. Bullshit. Utter, utter bullshit. The probability is Ryder doped extensively up until he joined Garmin at the very least. Whether he stopped when he joined Garmin is anybody's guess, but he's never being censured or punished so I don't really care is JV knew about his doping past, or whether he had admitted it all to USADA, or qwhether he has been riding clean, none of that matters, he should be puniched and sod the SoL.
And the Giro win does look suspicious, exp when contrasted with his appalling form this season. Very disappointing from Ryder, from JV and from a 'clean' team like Garmin.
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I read that as punched.
He should be punshed and puniched.
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Djokovic is either naive, stupid, egocentric or all three.
WADA is being far too lenient with regards to what governing bodies need to do as a minimum. The average number of tests per year per athlete is far too low.
If an athlete is always tested in the days after blood doping activity every single time, the samples will all be biassed the same way, revealing nothing, whereas an intensive unpredictable programme of testing is needed to identify the unnatural fluctuations in various metrics.
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Posted by
@rpm
The only way it could really work is if the UCI said "declare all your past indiscretions, but anything left under the carpet will result in a lifetime ban should it surface from this date..." Then riders are actually incentivised to clear the air. Probably wouldn't work though.